The Survival Pack..

Monday, June 30, 2008

Ty-tanic

There are some issues that the girls and I are biased about. I giggled whenever I think of it.

Around last week, I went out with Sarah for a hawker dinner somewhere in Setapak and as we were leaving, we saw that my car was blocked by another car. So being the temperamental me, I started cursing in no time and blared the horn. Sarah and I checked on the other car's handbrake, just in case the driver left it down, then we girls might be able to push the car away. But the handbrake was up, so we figured there was no point trying sampai terkencet dalam seluar pun belum tentu the car could move.

So, curse...curse...until Sarah saw a piece of paper written in Chinese with a mobile number on it. We guessed the owner of the car left the number for a purpose (We couldn't be more blonde at that time ;) Haha...!). Sarah called the number and told the owner that we need his car out of the way. We swore we were so pissed and I promised myself to give him one of my gruesome, bitchy look. But not a minute later we saw a guy in his office attire, rushing towards us, smiling. And the two of us went...

'God, he's cute...tak jadik la nak marah'.

And then it was that simple. We simply stared at him, smiled to him and to ourselves like a school girl, he said he was sorry and we simply waved to him and murmured...

'It's ok. No biggie..'

The verdict? Yup. We were being biased. Definitely.

There's another issue, where I also think that us girls were being prejudicial about. Me and the girls (Farrah, Mareena and Alek - ok Alek is not a girl but he's one of us girls for sure ;) ) all agreed that we cant tolerate our own kind if they speaks terribly broken English and yet are so confident and being haughty and cocky all at the same time. Not that I speak the perfect English but the fact that some people who tried so hard to 'ayat' the opposite sex dengan bercakap broken English dan mengeluarkan kata-kata romantis in English adelah sangat menggelikan dan sengal. We found that we would rather listen to him/her in our mother tongue than having to put up with their brain-cracking English and holding our breath for a loooong time.

However, on the other hand, we girls raised the question...Would we have the same opinion towards a foreigner, for example, whose first language isn't English and speaks the language equally bad? And all of us ladies said.., we wouldn't mind a bit.

And the verdict for this? Prejudice, yes. But a justified one. Mainly because English is the only way to converse with them. If it's our people, there's always another choice, that is Bahasa Malaysia. Ok true, we speak to improve but bragging and acting augustly aren't necessary. The combination of bad English and arrogance is oh so sordid. Something like telling the world that they've been everywhere and wearing all the designer's brands life could offer in loopy English. It makes me want to tell them...

'...with that much money you have, can't you like take up a basic English course or something? You should at least know that it's mean and it means bring different meanings...'

I know. I am no angel and imperfect. You can bash me, blame me and chastise me, but I will always be me. Like Ne-yo said in one of his songs...

Hem..I agree to the widely usage of 'its mean and it means'...irritating but tolerable since I guess at least people are trying. So long as we can understand what they are trying to say..then its ok with me..

I want to ask you if this is a typo or "yours" just trying to trick us and make sure we are kept on "ours" toes?

You wrote,

"all agreed that we can't tolerate our own kind if they 'speaks' terribly broken English"

or did you really "means",

"all agreed that we can't tolerate our own kind if they 'speak' terribly broken English"?

Let me know if I "gets" a gold "stars"?

By the way, to anyone out there who's trying to better yourselves by learning a new language, dialect or skill, good for you. You get A for effort. However, anything worth doing is worth doing right, don't you agree?

Nurul,Tolerable if they are by personality pleasant people. But intolerable if they are scumbags who are constantly blowing hot air. :)

Mike,Oh, you have done that definitely.

Alek,Typo, Alek. My bad. And you master, 'you look seems like be' the person who has the ability to compile all these seriously-injured-Manglish phrases. However, the way I see it, your attempt to break your own English tak menjadi. Tsk, tsk..! Well, then again, what I'm trying to say is, be broken all you can, it's ok. But just don't be arrogant.

P/s : I goes to supermarket this morning to get pumpkin but it don't sell pumpkin. Can you believe? Yes I know I can buy or look at market but I not the market person because is smelly. I think I will purpose the government to close all wet market. Is true, is it? What I say?

It has been too frequent I ended up with bosses who are cocky and deserves a slap in the face : they try to sound smart speaking english but at the ended making themselves a complete fool tlying tu spik inglish ; of course with a very broken onelah . Lepas tu nak try marah orang dengan cakap omputeh. Yang kena marah bukan takut tapi nak tahan gelak dengar bahsa tunggang langgang

hey I'm not claiming I veli good in inglish and the last time I checked,my butt is still not glowing white like the omputeh but belajar2 la skek.

asrif,yeah, i know for sure that u are not one of 'them'. and i remember that scene. i noticed that whenever i recall movies made in those days, i don't feel squirmy at all. tapi movies yang zaman sekarang, (most of them) kalau tengok lebih dari sekali lepas tu mesti rase geli-geleman. especially when i have to listen to Jalaludin Hassan's speaking the malay language with a fake 'mat salleh' accent. yucks!

Good point...I face the same thing almost everyday (yelaa orang yang kerja kat klinik kerajaan kan...so bermacam-macam oranglaa yang ditemui)...especially in this area(bangsar)... they live and work in bangsar,so they thought they're very good and up-to-date plus 'kaya'...they will walk into my surgery(treatment room) with one kind of air ,asking to be treated as soon as possible because they claim they are very busy and can't wait for so long (if they are reaaalllllly rich...why don't they go to the private clinic????) Dahlaa konon-kononnya nak speak english..."Doc, my tooth upstairs is paining"..or" doc,this one teeth is paining" (????????) when they are actually refering to 1 tooth only....you feel like laughing but they will feel offended and if I try to correct their english,the next thing I know, I 'll get a letter of complaint saying I'm rude..... susahkan?

well, I guess I just have to put up withthis kind of people... half past six